Newcastle City Library
Thompson's of Prudhoe have just completed the demolition of Newcastle City Library. Located in the heart of the city, the building had been constructed in 1962. It was a four storey concrete framed building with panel infill. The existing building is being demolished to make way for the construction of a new 'state of the art' library at a cost of 40 million pounds which is due to be completed in the summer of 2009.
Thompson's were appointed to carry out the demolition work by the main contractor Tolent Construction, starting work in March 2007 with completion by August 2007.
Once the building was handed over by the City, the first task to be carried out was an environmental survey to establish that no city centre wildlife would be in danger once the demolition works commenced. The next step was to remove the asbestos identified in the type 3 asbestos survey. Once the asbestos had been removed the building was completely soft stripped and all materials were removed from site via an external scaffold chute.
An added complication to this project was investigation work to establish if the existing building foundations were suitable for incorporation into the design and construction of the foundations for the new structure, highly important information critical for completion of the overall project. The investigation works had to be done from inside the building before demolition work started. Access into the building for the landrover and drilling rig, used by the investigation team, was created with our Brokk 180's. Internal walls and floors had to be broken in the required locations and ramps built to allow access to all parts of the existing foundations.
As the soft strip and asbestos removal work progressed scaffolding to the majority of the building was erected and encapsulated with Monaflex sheeting. A section of the building was not scaffolded in an area to allow the main demolition works to start with our Cat 350 long reach excavator. The scaffolding works were undertaken due to the sensitive city centre location and the presence of public footpaths to three sides of the building. The sheeting provided a barrier for dust and the scaffold allowed access to each of the four floors, necessary to allow the demolition 'by hand' of the vertical concrete fins that were present on the building at every level. Once the asbestos removal and soft strip had been completed, the Cat 350 long reach excavator began the main demolition works, floor by floor. The demolition arisings were then loaded on to 8 wheel tipper wagons and removed offsite to our nearby recycling centre for processing, via a dedicated traffic route designed to cause as little disruption as possible to other city centre road users.
With the library being such a high profile job Newcastle City Council set up a live web cam which gave the public a unique view of this particular demolition project. Thompson’s also attended monthly meetings which allowed local residents and traders the opportunity to raise any concerns they had regarding the works. Generally there was a positive feedback from these meetings and the web cam which contributed to the successful completetion of this demolition project.
